Nothing could be cleaner and neater than the old lady; all her ways were tidy. She never ran her forefinger in a tumbler or tea cup, nor washed the tea things in a wash basin, nor dried them on the same towel with which the hands were dried, as many of the poor do. All this Mr. Price saw, and what made his room particularly comfortable was, that there were shutters to his window. His room was facing the road, which Mrs. M’Curdy very much regretted, as the children of the other shanties were for ever in view of the house, keeping up an eternal squalling and noise of some kind or other, frequently amounting to screams and yells. When things arrived at this height, the mothers of the different children would rush out, and by dint of pulling, tugging, beating and scolding, succeed in dragging the delinquent away from “the sick gentleman.” “Can’t ye be after seeing that your noise disturbs the lame gentleman, ye sinners you,” said Mrs. Brady one fine spring morning, as she was separating her two eldest boys from a fighting frolic—“come away, will ye, and get me the chips, or ye’ll no get your breakfast, let alone your father’s and the baby’s.” One eye was directed to Mr. Price’s window, while this was screamed out by the woman, a poor, dirty, broken down looking creature; who, although not more than five and thirty, looked at least fifty. She had never had the “luck” to see Mr. Price, a thing she ardently longed for, as every one else at some odd time or other, had taken a peep at him. Larry was loud in his praise, and lazy Jemmy, as he was called by one and all of the women, and by his own wife too, had also testified to the liberality of the lame gentleman. “Why are not these children made to work,” said he to Mrs. M’Curdy, as he turned from the window in disgust. “Those two boys could be employed in the factories, I should think; they must be at least eight and ten years of age.” “Yes, they are old enough to work,” said Mrs. M’Curdy, “but it is only in the paper-mills that such young children are wanted; and those who have even worked in a paper-mill know that nothing tires such young children so much as picking and pulling about old rags. If they could be employed at some other thing half the day, I think both the employer and the children could be greatly benefited by it.” “Well, why can they not? Why can’t they be made to work in a garden all the morning, and at some quiet work in the afternoon? Here you have a population of several thousand persons, and according to your own account throughout the summer you have no fruit nor vegetables, scarcely a potato. You live then on bread and meat. Are not those men who have an eye to the interests of the community aware, that a diet of this kind creates thirst, and they must know that a thirsty man will not always drink water. How do you get along with such a poor diet as bread and meat?”